Don't suppose I'm the first to come up with this, but I've had amazing travel success pre-ordering baby supplies (diapers, formula, powder, wipes, organic food — anything bulky and/or hard to come by at a 7-11) from Amazon and drop-shipping them to our hotel in advance. We don't have to fill a suitcase with consumables, and Amazon beats grocery-store prices in most cases (especially for us, since this stuff is always lots more expensive in the UK).

After our wedding we spent a couple days in Houston en route to Honduras. Rather than bring a month's worth of baby stuff to Toronto, shlepping it to Houston, and thence to Honduras, we ordered EVERYTHING – — formula, rice cereal, food in jars, diapers, powder, wipes, cream, pop-up crib, baby bathing suit, sunscreen, etc etc — from Amazon (along with a $10 wheeled duffel-bag to put it all in!) and had it shipped straight to Houston. It worked INCREDIBLY well, and since we left a suitcase worth of wedding-clothes, etc, in Toronto after the wedding, we were able to go very light indeed.

You know the best part? They left all of the packaging at the hotel (along with a generous tip) and it was taken away by housekeeping.

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Comments

This is a fabulous tip! As the editor of WeJustGotBack.com, a family travel site, I’ve seen many variations of this tip–from boxing your own supplies and sending them to your hotel via USPS’s Parcel Post to using a baby supply-shipping service, which can be super convenient but expensive. We’ve also posted on our blog (http://blog.wejustgotback.com) about resorts that offer so-called “baby butler” packages, which give you all your baby supplies (diapers, wipes, etc) plus gear (crib, stroller, etc) as a complimentary service. This tip, ordering online from a good-value source, then shipping it directly to yourself at your hotel, is probably the easiest and cheapest ways to go.

This is such a great idea – anything that adds this amount of convenience, especially during travel, is fantastic. The company I work for, Alice, will have a similar model for this type of convenience all the time.

Just a note if you’re going to a place where you know you’ll be returning with goods for other people: if you pack a suitcase full of things you’ll use up on the trip, it’ll be empty on the way home for things that you may pick up while at your destination.